JEDDAH, 20 September 2003 — You can dial 907 from your home phone or cell phone and find out the phone bill for any land-line in the Kingdom though not the name of the subscriber. STC announced over two years ago that in order to ask about the bill for a land-line number, you would need a password unless you were calling from the phone line you wish to ask about.
The company assured the public that it guaranteed their privacy with this service, but that does not seem to be the case. If you call 907 from your land-line, one of the options is that if you want to ask about a number other than the one you are dialing from, press 2.
Then you are told to enter the number, beginning with area code. Once that is done, you are told the current outstanding amount, the amount of the last bill and the current payment due date. If you call 907 from your cell phone, option 1 is that if you want to inquire about a land-line number, you enter the area code and phone number and within a few seconds you receive the information.
“What chaos! Just another example of STC’s inefficiency,” said Asma. “If they can’t do it properly, they shouldn’t do it at all.” Another customer agreed. “It’s nobody’s business what my phone bill is or whether I have paid it or not. This is an invasion of privacy.”
Arab News called STC Customer Service, but apparently it is unaware of the problem. The customer service representative insisted that it was not possible to access information about a phone number other than the one being dialed from or from a cell phone without a password. He was adamant even when told that Arab News had tried it and accessed all the information without a password.
